btv078 yndi halda : enjoy eternal bliss

Yndi Halda’s debut full-length, Enjoy Eternal Bliss, unfolds through four tracks that clock in at a little more than an hour. This is expansive, epic instrumental music with varied sections and movements that rise to crescendo out of subtle, gentle ambience. Melodies ebb and flow, rising to beautiful explosions. It’s the kind of music that could soundtrack a modern day love story as easily as it could a mid-century war. A barrage of instrumentation is woven together to form the fabric of this music, with soaring violins and whispering glockenspiels, melodies of clarinets and banjos, and driving guitars and bass supported by a military-like percussion sound. With one beautiful soundscape after another, Yndi Halda create something bigger than an emotional rollercoaster. It’s more like a full-on mountain assault through thick blizzards and incredible sunshine.

Yndi Halda is the first foreign band on the Burnt Toast Vinyl roster. The band hails from a small fishing village called Kingsdown in the most southeastern tip of the UK and is made up of five friends who met in grammar school in their early youth. They began to form various types of bands in their teenage years, solidifying as Yndi Halda when they were 16 and 17 (the band members now range in age from 20 to 21). The band was discovered by the label when they were voted number two on the top 50 instrumental albums of 2005 by Decoymusic.com, ahead of such bands as Sigur Ros, Explosions In the Sky, Pelican, Mono, and more. Yndi Halda is Old Norse for “enjoy eternal bliss”, taken from the Eddic epic poem “Hrafnagaldur Óðins“, and the title of their debut album.

The album is accompanied by etchings from a local artist friend who depicts scenes from the quiet English fishing town Yndi Halda claim as their home. The influence of place on Yndi Halda’s sound is significant, with the band writing songs and practicing in a barn on the top of a hill in their small village in the midst of rolling hills, valleys, and the crashing waves of the nearby sea.

Enjoy Eternal Bliss features deluxe packaging with cardboard origami covers assembled with no glue, with both the covers and booklets printed on 100% recycled paper with vegetable based inks. The deluxe vinyl version of Enjoy Eternal Bliss is a double LP, with the booklets printed on 100% recycled paper with vegetable based inks. Enjoy Eternal Bliss is a very international album being released in North America, Europe, Japan,Taiwan, and South Korea simultaneously. Yndi Halda have already toured in the UK twice and are planning more extensive European, American, and Asian tours.

“Already a stunning live act, Enjoy Eternal Bliss confirms this five-piece’s position as Britain’s finest on-record purveyors of modern instrumental rock music. Promulgate from the tallest peaks: Yndi Halda, here, exhibit talent enough to eclipse the post-millennium efforts of any of their peers. (9/10)” –Mike Diver, Drowned In Sound

“I have no doubt that your attention will never depart from the sonic assault of musical brilliance [of Yndi Halda]” –James Schultz, Underground Review

“Haunting, halting, stunning, beautiful, utterly emotional and overwhelming in all its power and promise…at times it’s dread quiet, at others it feels like the world is caving in” –Simon Diplock, Moderate Rock Reviews

“the most dazzling climaxes in recent musical history. this will saw into you with the visceral precision of a surgeon’s blade.” –Kaveh Akbar, The Quirk